


covenant

by astralscrivener



Series: vld fic requests [5]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Everyone else is mostly mentioned - Freeform, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gen, Holtganes, Multi, Possible Character Death, Post-Season/Series 04, Suicide Attempt, Team as Family, Violence, broganes, fic request, holt siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-03-05 14:35:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13389897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astralscrivener/pseuds/astralscrivener
Summary: Pidge threw in her lot with him the moment she stepped to his side and gave him a tight nod. She gave no indication she knew of the stunt Keith pulled just ten minutes prior to this meeting, just an indication that she, too, sensed something off about this, and trusted Keith to keep her safe in this case.They'd protect each other like sibings, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.fic request for instagram user agreekgeek: introduction + platonic kidge





	covenant

**Author's Note:**

> fic request for instagram user **agreekgeek** : introduction + platonic kidge
> 
> when initially plotting this i meant for this to be like, a 1-2k modern au kidfic, where keith and pidge meet for the first time, but then this just sort of...happened
> 
> also there's a lot more holtganes (my personal name for the keith/pidge/shiro/matt friendship) than i intended
> 
> aNYWAY HOPE YOU LIKE IT
> 
> **TRIGGER WARNING for attempted suicide mention (aka s04e06 ending)**

**.:introduction:.**

            The first time Pidge met him, she’d mostly blocked it from her memory. Then again, she hadn’t been paying much attention, and neither had he. Shiro and Matt were the best of friends, and over one break from the Garrison, Shiro came over with a new boy in tow, one with a messy mop of hair he introduced as “Keith.” Keith had an air about him that spelled trouble, and Pidge had barely muttered a greeting before hightailing it back to her room.

            She didn’t remember the name the night she sprinted after Lance across the desert that surrounded the Garrison, as he followed a boy with a bandana around his face, a boy who broke onto Garrison property and spirited Shiro away from the doctors and nurses who’d tied him down and refused to listen to him, who knocked him out before he could spill crucial evidence about a mission that stole her father and brother.

            They’d never formally reintroduced themselves. Pidge hopped on his bike, and wound up in his desert shack, and when she presented herself as the male Pidge Gunderson, and not the female Katie Holt, he either didn’t recognize her or wasn’t willing to give her away. Pidge leaned much more toward that second one, especially after she’d come out with the truth to the team, and he’d nodded to her with a knowing smile.

            They left their past without acknowledgment. It wasn’t a thing that needed addressing—it just sort of _existed._ When Keith claimed to have known her for a long time before Voltron, and claimed to have cared about her like she was his own sister, and proclaimed that he’d die for her if necessary, Pidge hadn’t questioned it. When Keith came back to Team Voltron after a particularly nasty mission with the Blades, sporting more bruises than necessary, Pidge threatened to beat the crap out of the next person who hurt her brother.

            To his credit, Matt wasn’t offended about it in the least, and jumped right on board with it.

            No one addressed Shiro’s strange silence in that particular instance.

* * *

            “These are my brothers, Matt and Keith.”

            “This is my sister, Pidge.”

            Such introductions were common on the newly-liberated planets that the Paladins and their allies visited across the universe.

            No one ever batted an eye. No one questioned. It didn’t matter that Pidge could’ve been a tiny clone of Matt, and Matt was just an enlarged version of Pidge, and Keith looked nothing like them—the aliens they visited accepted it and moved on, and that was that. Then again, maybe it was best not to question things when one person of their trio was a rebel leader, one was both a Paladin and a Blade, and one was the youngest Paladin of the team.

* * *

            It was that same introduction they skipped over the day they all gathered in the Black Lion’s hangar, the same hangar where the exiled Prince Lotor parked his ship alongside the leader lion. The same hangar where he stepped out and approached the team alongside Shiro, who didn’t seem the least bit put-off by his presence in the castleship.

            Maybe it was the amount of trust Shiro was placing in Lotor to walk aboard their ship, hands free, weapon plainly visible at his side. Maybe it was the way he didn’t seem to realize the rest of the team was on edge, or the ease with which he walked next to Lotor. The way he didn’t even appear to be acting cautious, so unlike the Shiro Keith knew before Kerberos, before his second disappearance into space.

            Or maybe it was the strange energy pulsating from the Black Lion, down her bond with Keith. Currently piloting a Lion or not, she’d let him in. He was both the Red Paladin and Black. He’d been their leader once.

            Pidge threw in her lot with him the moment she stepped to his side and gave him a tight nod. She gave no indication she knew of the stunt Keith pulled just ten minutes prior to this meeting, just an indication that she, too, sensed something off about this, and trusted Keith to keep her safe in this case.

            “Team,” Shiro said, and even the tone of the one word set Keith at unease. This wasn’t filled with warmth and relief that everyone was alive and accounted for, not like it usually was after one of their near-death experiences. “This is Prince Lotor. He’s seeking asylum.”

            As if nobody else had heard him over their comms. As if Keith hadn’t heard it when his blood was still roaring in his ears, heart threatening to burst out of his chest, breaths coming sharp and uneven. As if Pidge hadn’t heard it after Voltron had nearly been crushed to death, and at fifteen, she was _prepared_ to die. As if Matt hadn’t heard it, still shaking off the shock of not being able to get through to Keith, of nearly being the last person Keith would ever talk to.

            “I know we’ve had a…difficult past,” Lotor began, and Keith couldn’t let go of the memory of his generals tossing his team around. “But I believe now that you’ve saved _me_ , and I’ve saved one of _yours_ …”

            Lotor’s eyes drifted to Keith, and he could feel the small army amassing at his back. Pidge, grabbing his arm. Matt, Lance, and Hunk, giants standing behind him. Allura, teeth grit, standing in front of all of them. Even off to the side, Coran stood with a rod-straight back, eyes narrowed, openly judgmental.

            Keith thanked every star above that for now, nobody questioned what Lotor meant.

* * *

            It stayed that way until Coran led Allura, Shiro, and Lotor away to greet the other arriving leaders for peace talks, and Keith slipped away from the group on his own. He took off down the halls of the ship for the training deck, before his body could start quaking and his legs could give out beneath him.

            “Keith.”

            He didn’t know who he expected to chase after him, but for whatever reason, he hadn’t been expecting Pidge. He thought about running. He was probably the fastest of all of them, and with legs longer than Pidge’s, he was at a distinct advantage. He’d be able to run, no problem.

            Instead, he stopped, and turned, and faced the smallest Paladin.

            “What did Lotor mean?” she asked.

            No beating around the bush. Keith never really knew Pidge to be the type to do so. Every time Matt told a story of their childhood, Pidge was straightforward. Always after the truth, unwilling to back down until she got what she came for. Even now, Keith didn’t think she’d back off if he asked.

            She deserved an explanation anyway. They were teammates. Unofficial siblings.

            “What happened on Naxzela?” Keith countered, and sat on the floor, patiently awaiting Pidge’s story. So Pidge sat across from him and spilled, every last detail—and there were a _lot_ of them. A lot of minor issues Keith would have to find the time to deal with, later.

            “And then Lotor shot the shield,” Pidge finished. “But he…he said he saved _one_ of ours. He looked at you, and _you_ weren’t with us. What happened out there?”

            So she hadn’t heard over the comms. Keith didn’t blame her—she’d had a lot on her plate to deal with, apparently.

            “You can’t tell the others,” Keith began, voice low. He looked over his shoulders, and beyond Pidge, to confirm that the hallways were empty. It was just the two of them. “Matt’s the only one who knows. He-he tried to talk me out of it, but it would have been the only way to save the rest of you. I had no idea Lotor was even close by, let alone that he was gonna shoot the shield.”

            Pidge’s eyes widened, just a fraction. Her mouth quirked into an o-shape.

            “Y-You…you were going to fly into the shield.”

            Keith nodded, mouth set in a grim line. Like everything else, he expected Pidge to react loudly, expected to have to tell her to _shut up, please don_ _’t let the others know._ He wasn’t ready to face the whole team with this. But she just nodded along with him, and then surged forward, ensnaring Keith in a hug so abruptly that he fell onto his back.

            “You fucking idiot,” Pidge mumbled, and Keith pretended that it didn’t sound like she was on the verge of tears. “Don’t _do that_.”

            Keith opened his mouth to protest, but Pidge beat him to it, with a soft “thank you.” Keith just squeezed her back harder, and neither one of them brought the matter up again when they got to their feet and rejoined the rest of the team, minus their leaders, on the bridge.

* * *

             _Fuck the Blades._

            “They what?”

            _Fuck this mission._

            Keith threw himself into the pilot’s seat of his small ship, ignoring the questioning cries of the few Blades he’d been with.

            _“They, uh…they’re all on a mission. Together. I don’t trust it. Neither do Hunk and Allura, but we’ve all got a mission of our own, and we really didn’t have much of a say in the matter. Shiro was putting up a fight—”_

_Fuck Shiro._

            Keith slammed his hand down on his dashboard as the engine to the ship roared to life.

            “I don’t know who the fuck that is,” Keith said, through grit teeth, “but that’s _not Shiro._ Pidge told me what happened on Naxzela. There’s no way in hell that’s the Shiro I know. Something’s up, and I’m going to find out what.”

            _“We can’t just abandon our mission,”_ Lance said, voice tight, _“but I_ can _give you the coordinates for where they went._ _”_

            Seconds later, coordinates popped up on a holoscreen at Keith’s right. He narrowed his eyes as he took in the numbers and letters and symbols before him. Pulling these coordinates up on a map did nothing to help Keith; it was an unfamiliar part of the universe, from the looks of it.

            “This doesn’t look good,” Keith muttered, and then raised his voice. “Lance?”

            _“Little busy—!”_

            “Thank you.”

            _“Oh! Yeah, no problem!”_

Lance dropped his voice. _“Bring them back in one piece. Yourself, too.”_

* * *

            There was no way Pidge or Matt or Green wouldn’t have sensed this was a trap.

            Keith’s scanners easily picked up on multiple Galra ships hiding out in this graveyard. Wrecked pieces of ship floated by, some big enough to hide the smaller Galra fighters, while asteroids and bigger pieces of space junk concealed the larger ships. Keith flew through all of them like a mouse weaving around watchful cats, his scanners pinging more and more rapidly the closer he drew to his destination.

            A Galra base.

            Lance hadn’t had the time to spare him the details of the mission. Infiltration, probably. Lotor, if cooperative, would have proven a valuable asset to the team, an insider with knowledge of how the Galra operated. You know. If he likely wasn’t plotting against the team right from the start. If he didn’t have Shiro, or whoever the fuck was wearing Shiro’s face, wrapped around his finger.

            Keith’s ship was small enough that he could park it alongside the base mostly undetected, as if those ships lurking nearby didn’t already know he was here. Their lack of fire disturbed Keith down to his core. The Galra way wasn’t to lie in wait, especially not when he was completely surrounded and could’ve easily been blown out of the sky.

            The hair on the back of Keith’s neck stood up as he existed the ship, his breaths too hot and too loud in his mask. He dissolved the mask but kept his hood up as he walked around the base, handheld scanner finally detecting a spot in the wall that he could cut open with relative ease. He drew his Galra blade and stabbed through metal, and soon enough, he’d cut away a jagged circle large enough to squeeze himself through.

            “Pidge,” Keith hissed as he sheathed his blade and looked around, speaking down the direct link to her comms and her comms _only._ “I’m on the base. Are you alright?”

            _“All of us are fine,”_ Shiro’s voice responded harshly, and Keith’s blood turned cold in his veins. _“I don’t see why you needed to come here.”_

            He itched to take off sprinting down these corridors in search of Pidge—her energy signature was _right there,_ and it was linked to her suit of armor and not her helmet. His scanner even came up empty in terms of soldiers and sentries. But he needed to take this slowly and carefully. Shiro—Not-Shiro—whoever he was—had her helmet, and Keith didn’t dare try contacting Matt. If Pidge was hurt, and Shiro didn’t sound like he was struggling, then it was a safe bet that Matt, too, was incapacitated.

            “Finished my mission early,” Keith lied, starting slowly down the hall to his left, eyes locked on his scanner. “Thought I’d check in. The others said you guys probably could use some help.”

            Keith winced. Maybe he shouldn’t have mentioned the others.

            He peered around the corner and drew back almost instantly—he was much closer to than he thought. Pidge’s energy signal blinked on Keith’s screen at him. _Just down the hall. Right there._ Along with Matt’s signal, and Shiro’s, and two others. One had to be Lotor. The other…who the hell was the other one?

            _Just go._

            Keith peeled away from the wall and slunk down the corridor, sticking to the side, staying as much in the shadows as he could manage. It still wasn’t good enough—about halfway down, Shiro began laughing, and Keith pulled up short, hand on his blade in an instant. This wasn’t normal Shiro-laughter. Not the kind of laughter Keith heard in the Garrison. Not the kind of laughter Keith heard when the team was lounging together, and someone cracked a joke.

            “So, you actually showed up,” Shiro said, striding forward.

* * *

            Being bound and gagged between an unconscious Matt and the real Shiro, as well as several crates and containers, was troublesome enough. Being watched by Lotor, who silently mocked her with his facial expressions as he listened to Keith engage in conversation with Kuron, was about twenty times worse.

            Her introduction to the clone had occurred when the group had walked into this room, and Kuron and Lotor turned on them. Matt got knocked out right away, in an effort to defend Pidge from her attackers. Pidge held out slightly longer, helmet getting whacked off of her head in the process. The real Shiro, all the while, was wide awake the whole time, screaming through a gag. Pidge thought he might’ve been yelling for them to leave her alone, but then again, the gag made it difficult to tell. As gags tended to do.

            If only she and Matt had been a little more prepared. Pidge had kind of gotten the feeling an attack was coming, but pinpointing when was the hard part. Stumbling upon the real Shiro had also thrown them off a little. By the time Kuron bore down on them, it was too late to really gain any traction. Especially with Lotor joining the fight. Both Lotor and Kuron were bigger than her and Matt. Taking on both of them at once was simply too much.

            She probably should’ve been grateful that someone told Keith about this mission, and even more so that he’d actually _showed up,_ but he wasn’t ready for this. There was no way.

            “What’s going on?”

            “Why don’t you see for yourself?”

            Pidge cut her eyes to the entrance to the large supply room they were in. Shiro stood in the doorway, gesturing for Keith to move past him.

            “You first,” Keith’s voice came, and Pidge could tell he was doing his best to keep calm. He knew something was up—the Red Paladin wasn’t the instinctive one for nothing, and being the Black Paladin entailed some level of composure and planning, thinking ahead and thinking on your feet.

            Lotor turned away from Pidge, then, with a smirk on his face as he watched the door. Pidge seized her opportunity and summoned the bayard that she’d put back into suit storage before anyone could think to take it from her. It materialized in her hands, bound behind her back, and she angled it as best she could, and hacked away at the cuffs around her wrists. There was a quiet buzz—Pidge dematerialized her bayard and put it back into storage before Lotor could even turn around.

            _He knows,_ Pidge thought as he turned his nose up at her, after a quick moment of study, and gazed at the door again.

            Pidge didn’t move her arms from behind her back. She’d lie until she couldn’t get away with it anymore, and then she’d fight back.

            “What? Are you afraid of me or something?”

            Shiro’s face twisted in disgust at that, and Pidge felt the shiver that raced through him.

            She watched Kuron enter through the door, and mouth to Lotor to lock this place down. Lotor nodded and turned away, heading for a staircase up to the catwalk that ran around the perimeter of the room. Then Kuron shifted his gaze to his three prisoners. He sneered, and his sneer turned downright sinister when Keith gasped from behind him.

            “Sh-Shiro?”

* * *

            Keith looked down at the scanner in his hand again.

            Pidge. Matt. Two dots, next to the one of the unidentified dots.

            He raised his eyes, back to the three people squished together among supply crates.

            “N-No, there’s…there’s no way…”

            Keith stiffened as the door slammed shut behind him, a metallic bang that echoed throughout the room. In an instant he turned, blade drawn and pointed at the not-Shiro standing next to him.

            “Keith,” not-Shiro said, smiling widely, “I’d like to introduce you to your final resting place.”

            Keith backed up, flicking his eyes around the room. No soldiers or sentries as far as he could see—just Lotor, leaning over the railing of a catwalk, grinning down at this whole thing like it was all some stage show for him to enjoy.

            “Who the _fuck are you?_ ” Keith asked.

            “I’m Shiro,” not-Shiro replied, taking a step forward that had the gagged Shiro making muffled yelling noises. “Don’t you recognize me, Keith?”

            Keith’s heart pounded. “Y-You—then _who_ _’s he?!_ ”

            He gestured with his free hand to the group of prisoners huddled in the corner, where the other Shiro squirmed, struggling to break free of his bonds. Keith’s stomach churned at the sight. That was the real Shiro, no doubt about it, and the sight of him as helpless as he was…

            “I don’t know why you’re prolonging the fight,” Lotor called down, and Keith wasn’t sure if he was speaking to him or to the fake Shiro, but either way, he didn’t much appreciate it.

            “Why did you save me that day?” Keith shouted up to him. “If I’m going to die here, why didn’t you let me break the shield in the first place?”

            The gagged Shiro went still.

            “Simple,” Lotor said. “I needed a way to get even. I _owed_ Team Voltron. There was no way I’d get direct access to the Lions to take down my father if I didn’t earn their trust _somehow_. Saving you from your little suicide mission was the easiest way to do that. Everyone’s a sucker for a saved life, after all.”

            Keith’s head spun. Hearing the words out loud— _suicide mission, saved life—_ the effect was immediate. Keith stumbled, almost as though Lotor had landed a physical blow, and that was when the fake Shiro moved in, Galra hand flaring to life in a wash of purple light.

            “And you played right into things,” Lotor sing-songed, while Keith barely had time to raise his blade to deflect Shiro’s incoming swipe. “Once you realized something was wrong, you had to come here to save your friends!”

            Not-Shiro swiped again, and Keith swung his blade the opposite way. Not-Shiro drew his arm back at the last second, and Keith’s momentum carried him too far. He didn’t have time to regain his balance before not-Shiro kicked him square in the chest and sent him sprawling on the floor.

            The real Shiro tried to scream.

            “So easy,” not-Shiro said with a mirthless little chuckle, a sound that had nausea rolling over Keith. He loomed above, foot brought up, prepared to smash Keith’s face in, when something bright green caught him across the face.

            “Get the _fuck away from my brother!_ ”

* * *

            Pidge breathed hard as the end of her bayard retracted, back into her hand. Kuron lost his footing and fell, as Pidge stomped forward, until she stood next to Keith. Behind her, Shiro moved fast, working at the binds on Matt, while Lotor vaulted over the catwalk railing and landed in front of her, sword drawn.

            Kuron, meanwhile, struggled to steady himself.

            “Take Matt and find the Black Lion,” Pidge ordered Shiro without turning around. “As fast as you can. Get out of here. We’ll meet up at the castle.”

            Pidge shifted on her feet, inching back as Lotor’s lip pulled back into a snarl.

            “What about—”

            “ _Go._ We can discuss everything with the rest of the team when we’re through here.”

            “…Alright.”

            Nobody moved except for Shiro, getting Matt into a fireman’s carry, before he realized that he had no way out of the room when the door was shut.

* * *

            Keith pushed himself off of the floor, rising on shaking legs next to Pidge.

            He wasn’t quite sure what was happening anymore, between the real Shiro _not_ being the one they’d spent several months chasing down Lotor with, and the fact that neither he nor the Black Lion realized right away— _but maybe she did, she never let him in until she had to, act now think later_ —and the fact that _Pidge_ was ordering him around, and he was _complying,_ and a _fake Shiro_ had teamed up with _Lotor—_

            “You ready?” Pidge asked, voice low as she got into a fighting stance.

            Keith blinked before he mimicked her motions.

            “Find a way to get that door open,” Keith replied. “I’ll hold them.”

* * *

            The words had hardly left Keith’s mouth when Lotor lunged for Pidge. Small as she was, she easily ducked underneath his swing and took off for the catwalk stairs. Lotor followed suit, going as far as hurling his blade at her to slow her down. The sword grazed her side as she dodged left, cut still deep enough to tear through suit and skin. She suppressed a cry— _it_ _’s not that bad, shake it off—_ and activated her grappling hook. It wrapped around the railing to the catwalk, and up she went. She gripped the railing and flipped over the side, landing on both feet with a thud.

            “Door, door, door…”

            Down below, Lotor shouted something in what Pidge assumed was Galran, while Keith and Kuron duked it out in a series of strikes and parries that Pidge watched from her periphery. Shiro, meanwhile, skirted the edge of the room, Matt still on his shoulders, at a strange ease, as though he wasn’t just a Galra prisoner for several months while his team ran around with a clone.

            “Aha,” Pidge muttered, and smashed a fist down on a button in the wall. Across the room, down below, the door opened, and Shiro bolted, at the same time that Kuron made a dash, and Keith tore after him, and Lotor followed Keith, shrieking for Kuron to activate the bomb.

* * *

             _Of course it_ _’s a fucking bomb._

            Shiro was just as fast as Keith, if not faster. The not-Shiro, as well as looking like him, had his other qualities. One of which had to be, naturally, his speed. The real one was at a distinct disadvantage, carrying an unconscious Holt to safety. It didn’t take long for the lookalike to catch up, and kick Shiro in the back so hard that he fell forward, Matt tumbling from his grasp before he could break Shiro’s neck.

            Keith launched himself at the clone’s back and tackled him, just as the clone activated the black bayard and summoned his sword. The bayard deactivated almost as quickly as it had activated and fell from the clone’s hands. It skittered across the floor, and Shiro snatched it up at the same moment Lotor entered their mess of a fight.

            He, of course, took aim at Keith.

            Keith rolled right as Lotor’s blade came down where his chest had been seconds prior—the clone’s back. The clone howled in pain, and Lotor gaped and ripped the blade out, eyes blazing with a new fury as he whipped around, in search of Keith. Keith, meanwhile, scrambled to Shiro’s side and assisted him in standing and getting Matt back on his shoulders.

            “What did he mean—”

            “I’ll explain later—”

            “I’m sorry I disappeared—”

            “We can deal _later_ —”

            “I didn’t know—”

            “ _For the love of all things holy would you fucking run?!_ ”

* * *

            Pidge decided to ignore Keith and Shiro’s back-and-forth in favor of swinging her bayard’s rope and getting it tangled around Lotor’s neck. The exiled prince choked and dropped his sword, fingers flying to the rope, only for Pidge to shock him. She yanked the ropes tighter and cranked up the voltage on her bayard.

            “This is what you get for messing with my family!” she shouted, and let the ropes fall away with one last tug while Lotor collapsed in an unmoving, slightly fried heap.

            Pidge didn’t have time to check if he was dead or not.

            Keith was squaring off with a recovered Kuron, while Shiro ran, one hand clutching his bayard, the other trying to keep Matt balanced. Pidge threw her lasso out again, but Kuron was ready. He side-stepped at the last second, and the lasso ended up around Keith’s waist, instead, pinning his sword-bearing arm to his side.

            The voltage was already on.

            Keith shrieked and went down.

            “Oh, _fuck!_ ”

            Pidge couldn’t deactivate her bayard any faster, the ropes disappearing. Keith still couldn’t bring himself to move, body still shaking from the shocks delivered, and Pidge ran at Kuron and tackled him around the waist from behind, before he got the chance to attack Keith. Kuron grunted and rolled with it, until Pidge was practically pinned underneath him by nothing more than his weight.

            “Get away from her!” Keith ground out, and surged forward with a newfound fury. He plunged his sword into the clone’s back, and the clone went limp. Pidge shoved up and over, and the clone fell off of her, off to the side.

            Keith stared wide-eyed at the body, eyes flicking from his sword to the wound he’d landed to the clone’s spine as Pidge got to her feet.

            “Come on,” Pidge said, and tugged his arm. “I don’t know if they got that bomb to activate, we have to go—”

            Keith snapped to his senses at once, and let Pidge lead the way to the Green Lion. Pidge wasn’t sure how Keith had gotten here, probably a Blade ship, but he didn’t even consider going to recover it. Pidge sat down in the pilot’s seat as Green’s maw closed, and Keith leaned against the back of it, peering over her shoulder.

            “Shiro, do you read?” Pidge spoke into the comms, and Keith tensed behind her.

            Several seconds of nothing passed, and then:

            _“I read. It’s really me.”_

            “Yeah, you’ve got a lot of explaining to do,” Pidge said, and laughed lightly, despite the situation. “We’ll talk back at the castle. We’ll see—”

            Pidge cut herself off as a boom sounded in the distance. She turned Green around, briefly, and she and Keith gazed out the window at the Galra base going up in a fireball.

            Neither of them missed the tiny ship streaking away, flying through smoke to try and stay undetected.

            “Well,” Pidge said, voice quiet. “That’s another problem we’ll have to deal with.”

* * *

            Pidge didn’t explain until the base was out of sight for a solid ten minutes.

            Lotor wanted Voltron for himself. He’d pilot a Lion, and so would Kuron, and they’d need three more pilots. Whether he could’ve convinced his estranged generals to meet up with him, or whether he’d have found someone else, or coerced a few of the Paladins to do it, no one was sure. But he needed all of the Lions in one place. How better to do that than to get the Paladins to come to him?

            Once they were all on the base, he’d leave with the Lions, and blow it up.

            “What about me? I…I don’t pilot a Lion,” Keith said slowly.

            Pidge shook her head. “You have a connection to two. You’re dangerous. He needed you there. One way or another, he knew you’d come. He just didn’t think it would be until we had Allura, Hunk, and Lance, too.”

            Keith crossed his arms and frowned. “Then why didn’t he just shoot me out of the sky? There were plenty of Galra ships lying around.”

            “Ghost ships,” Pidge explained. “They’re just to scare off anyone who comes to this sector. That base has been abandoned for a long time. Lotor took it over when he found that out, because if his dad has no use for it, then he gets free reign. He figured he could use it to store something. Prisoners was his big plan.”

            Keith pursed his lips.

            “So then…the clone…”

            “I call him Kuron,” Pidge said. “That’s apparently what they called the project. Project Kuron. After the fight with Zarkon, Shiro basically got teleported into the nearest place with breathable air, because sitting in Black was too dangerous. It just happened to be a Galra base. They took him and cloned him, and sent the clone in.”

            “Did they explain everything to you?” Keith asked.

            Pidge smiled thinly. “You hear a lot when you pretend to be unconscious.”

            Her smile faded as she flew on, when Keith said nothing, but reached down and ruffled her hair.

            “Um, Keith?”

            “Yeah?”

            “Thanks. For coming after us. Even though you were in the middle of a mission.”

            “Screw the Blades,” Keith said flippantly, and Pidge stiffened.

            “What?”

            “Screw the Blades,” Keith repeated. “My little sister was in trouble, of course I was going after her.”

            Pidge swallowed thickly. Were her eyes getting misty? No, there was no way _that_ was happening—

            “I remembered you, you know,” Keith said quietly. “When you followed Lance that night. I heard your voice and something sounded familiar about it. When we settled down in the shack, something kept nagging at me. You said _Pidge_ and then it clicked. I remembered Matt, in the Garrison, talking about a _Pidge._ His little sister. I knew I was right when Hunk pulled out that photo. Before he and Shiro left for Kerberos, he told me that you wanted to join the Garrison. He wanted me to watch out for you. I didn’t think it would happen when I got booted…but, you know, here we are.”

            “Keith,” Pidge said, “you are the absolute _worst._ Stop making me cry while I’m trying to fly a Lion.”

            Keith laughed. “Alright, sorry.”

            He quieted after that, and Pidge didn’t want to break up the silence that settled over Green’s cockpit. So neither of them spoke up until they reached the castleship, and Pidge pulled Green into her hangar, and they were now faced with the task of leaving the Lion and rejoining the team.

            “Shiro’s gonna kill me,” Keith whispered, staring at the exit ramp. “He’s…he’s going to flip out.”

            “ _Kuron_ would’ve flipped,” Pidge said, coming up to Keith’s side. “Shiro’s probably going to hug you and cry. Let’s be real here. Plus, he hasn’t actually seen you in months. I’m pretty sure yelling at his little brother is the last thing he wants to do. After all, when I found Matt, I thought _he_ _’d_ freak out, and he just kept going on about how cool I was, so.”

            Keith sucked in a shaking breath. “I hope so.”

            Pidge looped her arm in Keith’s. “If he yells at you, I’ll just yell back. Now come on—let’s go see what Space Dad’s been up to these past few months.”

**Author's Note:**

> okay it's quarter to 2 AM on a tuesday time to shower and do all my homework byeee


End file.
